I’ve recently been forced to wake up the earliest ever in my life. Sleeping on a futon is fine, comfortable even. But they don’t call this the Land of the Rising Sun for nothing. Lately the sun has been coming up just after 5am, which means I wake up too. Even without an east facing window, it becomes very bright very early. Add to this the fact that the temperature doesn’t seem to drop below 20°c at all, ever – quite a contrast with Manchester where it didn’t seem to get above that temperature… Only permanently-on air conditioning and a fan by my bed makes it bearable. It almost makes me wish for the rain back home. Almost.